Humane Exposures Blog

A half-century ago, state governments, led by Calif. Gov. Ronald Reagan, closed mental hospitals, dumping tens of thousands of bewildered patients on the streets, from which many were arrested and imprisoned.

D.J. Jaffee, founder and exec. director of the Mental Illness Policy Organization

According to D.J. Jaffee, author of “Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails The Mentally Ill,” the problem is that the focus, money and attention in our nation is focused on helping nearly everyone but those ten million mentally ill, and the result is at least 140,000 Americans being homeless, 392,037 in jails and prisons, 755,360 on probation or parole and at least 95,000 who need hospitalization unable to find a bed.

He says:
“When the mental “illness” system disappeared and the mental “health” system replaced it, homelessness, hospitalization, crime, arrest, violence, incarceration, shootings of and by police, and expenditures for mental illness all went up. The only metrics going down are the number of psychiatric beds available to treat the seriously mentally ill and the number of nonprofits, government agencies, advocates and politicians that care. We’re in this mess because the mental health industry convinced the government to abandon treatment the most seriously mentally ill in favor of serving the highest functioning.

“And yet, despite almost yearly attempts to create a better system, the odds of helping the seriously mentally ill today are no better than they were 30 years ago, and oddly, are probably much worse.”

Jaffee takes on the mental health care industry for valuing profits over patients, the courts for stupid judicial rulings and the emergence of recovery/wellness programs that he claims do little if any good for the seriously mentally ill.

His solutions: that money and services should be targeted for the sickest and that we need to stop talking about mental “health” and call it an “illness.” Among other things, his solutions include ridding ourselves of the exclusion that prohibits the construction of longer term psychiatric institutions, largely shuttering the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, handcuffing Protection and Advocacy Groups to stop them from lobbying, better fund evidence based treatments, modify civil commitment, expand mental health courts, and create more hospital beds and housing.

If any of this sounds familiar, it is because much of what Jaffe suggests was included in the original drafts of Rep. Tim Murphy’s Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act that was largely rewritten, homogenized and compromised as it passed through Congress so that it could become law.

One-in-five Americans grapple with a mental illness each year. Homelessness and over-imprisonment continue to be growing problems.